Finder Crashing? Solution

Question

Hello all,
I hunted a little bit to find this solution so I figured I would start an easy-to-find-via-search post about how I fixed this.
PROBLEM: At some point after installing Lion (10.7.x), Finder started to repeatedly crash, causing an ever-increasing irritation to take over the mind of the computer operator.
SOLUTION: More than likely, through software installs, downloads and copying in backup files, you've populated your directories with .DS_Store files. Follow these steps:
Backup your files somewhere safe [standard disclaimer].
Launch Terminal.app
Issue the following commands:
cd ~
find ~ -type f -name ".DS_Store" -exec rm -v {} \;
At this point, you can either restart your computer and see if the problem persists or, if you don't mind losing your Finder preferences, get this next part out of the way and then restart:
rm -v ~/Library/Preferences/*finder*
rm -v ~/Library/Preferences/*sidebar*
rm -rfv ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder/*
That should do the trick (remember to restart). If not, then you've got a different problem than most of the people posting about Finder crashes and I would suggest copying the crash report Finder is giving you into a new discussion here. Have fun.

Answer 1

I upgraded to Yosemite. Finder stays open and has a spinning wheel. It does not respond to Force Quit. I have spent 2 hrs. with Apple Support today on the phone. We tried to re-install Yosemite, but the time for completion started at 166 hrs. And kept increasing. So they are sending me to an Apple Store Wednesday. Others have commented on Finder problems.